My daily chronicle of news about the Trump administration (20 January 2017 – 20 January 2021), Republicans, Democrats, corporations, courts, resistance, and persistence continues. I am still posting important articles, especially ones that reflect the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration and ones that address the toxic legacy of the Trump administration and Republicans. However, I hope to devote more of my time to posting muckraking articles on my site and to working with my local activist group in pursuit of progressive change and a stronger democracy. Thanks for reading!

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Monday, 1 August 2022:

 

War in Ukraine: First grain shipment leaves Ukraine as Zelensky urges security for future food exports, The Washington Post, Dalton Bennett, Jennifer Hassan, Kareem Fahim, Kendra Nichols, Adam Taylor, and Reis Thebault, Monday, 1 August 2022: “A ship carrying grain left the Ukrainian city of Odessa for the first time since Russia’s invasion and blockade of the country’s ports. The shipment is the result of a U.N.-backed deal meant to ease the global hunger crisis. World leaders heralded it as a badly needed glimmer of hope in the race to combat soaring prices, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said international monitors must guarantee the safety of future food-hauling freighters. ‘We cannot have the illusions that Russia will simply refrain from trying to disrupt Ukrainian exports,’ he said.

• The cargo vessel is carrying more than 28,000 tons of corn. It is expected to arrive in Turkish territorial waters Tuesday, en route to Lebanon. A Russian missile strike on Odessa one day after the U.N.-brokered grain-export deal was signed in late July had raised fears that the arrangement would crumble.
• The key Black Sea port of Mykolaiv was hit over the weekend by ‘one of the most brutal shellings’ since the war began, Zelensky said after dozens of Russian rockets destroyed homes, schools and infrastructure. Among those killed in the city was one of Ukraine’s richest business executives, who founded an agriculture company that helped facilitate the country’s grain exports.
• The success of grain exports going forward will depend on the United Nations and Turkey, which helped broker the deal with Russia, ensuring safe passage of ships from ports such as Odessa and Mykolaiv, Zelensky said late Monday.
• Ukraine on Monday confirmed the delivery of precision multiple-launch rocket systems from Germany, bolstering a growing arsenal that has been credited with destroying dozens of strategically important Russian targets. German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht recently said that an initial delivery of German Gepard antiaircraft weapons has arrived in Ukraine and that Germany is sending more self-propelled howitzers than initially planned. Several German IRIS-T air defense systems are also slated for delivery in the autumn.
• The White House on Monday announced an additional $550 million in security assistance for Ukraine. The latest package will include ammunition for howitzer and high-mobility rocket systems, or HIMARS, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a news briefing. The United States has now provided about $8.8 billion in security assistance to Ukraine during the Biden administration. The European Union also announced that $1 billion in aid will be delivered to Ukraine by Tuesday.
• Brittney Griner is due back in a Russian court Tuesday, where she will make her first appearance since the United States publicly acknowledged it had proposed a prisoner exchange to free the WNBA star, along with security consultant Paul Whelan. Griner faces charges of cannabis possession, and U.S. officials say there has been no major progress on securing her release since they proposed the swap.

Russia-Ukraine War: With Its First Grain-Loaded Ship in Months En Route, Ukraine Readies More. A Ukrainian Official said 16 more ships were waiting to depart with grain, but experts warned that even if the deal with Russia that opened Ukraine’s ports holds, the global food crisis will persist. The New York Times, Monday, 1 August 2022:

• A ship loaded with Ukrainian grain leaves the Port of Odesa for the first time since the war began.
• ‘One miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation’: The U.N. chief issues a grim warning, citing war.
• Russia has turned Europe’s largest nuclear power plant into a fortress.
• Ukraine wages a ‘deep war’ to degrade Russian forces as Moscow continues its scorched-earth campaign.
• Hunger is so widespread that Ukraine’s resumed grain exports will barely make a dent, experts say.
• Here’s what we know about the deadly blast at a prisoner camp in eastern Ukraine.
• A blast hit a warehouse belonging to a Bulgarian arms merchant previously targeted by Russia.

Russia-Ukraine War: A weekly recap and look ahead (August 1), NPR, NPR Staff, Monday, 1 August 2022: “As the week begins, here’s a roundup of key developments from the past week and a look ahead. What to watch this week: Monday: As a ship loaded with Ukrainian grain left Odesa for the first time since the war began, there are hopes that it will be the first of many resuming the country’s exports. Tuesday: The trial of WNBA star Brittney Griner continues in Moscow. Wednesday: ASEAN-led meetings get underway in Cambodia, where Ukraine will be on the agenda. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be among top diplomats gathering in Phnom Penh. Friday: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are expected to meet in Sochi, Russia. What happened last week: Monday, July 25: Russia’s Gazprom said it would reduce the amount of gas it sends through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20% of capacity. On the same day, Russia announced it would quit taking part in the International Space Station after 2024. Tuesday, July 26: European Union energy ministers agreed on an emergency deal to ration natural gas to help EU countries get through the coming winter. Wednesday, July 27: On the same day that Brittney Griner’s trial continued in Moscow, the U.S. proposed a prisoner swap in which Moscow would free Griner and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine imprisoned in Russia, in exchange for the U.S. release of imprisoned Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Thursday, July 28: Russian missile strikes targeted Ukraine’s Kyiv and Chernihiv regions on the same day that Ukrainian authorities announced an operation to liberate the occupied region of Kherson in the south. Friday, July 29: Ukraine and Russia blamed one another for shelling that killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war in eastern Ukraine. Also, Blinken spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for the first time since the war began, urging Russia to accept the proposal aimed at bringing home Griner and Whelan. Blinken also pressed Russia on allowing Ukrainian grain exports. Saturday, July 30: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a mandatory evacuation of people in the eastern Donetsk region. Also, Gazprom cut off gas shipments to Latvia. Russia demands payment in rubles and has already stopped gas shipments to other EU countries after their refusal to do so. Sunday, July 31: Marking Russia’s Navy Day, President Vladimir Putin approved a new naval doctrine highlighting the U.S. and NATO as the biggest threats to Russia.

Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, August 2022:

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My daily chronicle of news about the Trump administration (20 January 2017 – 20 January 2021), Republicans, Democrats, corporations, courts, resistance, and persistence continues to wind down. I am still posting important articles, especially ones that reflect the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration and ones that address the toxic legacy of the Trump administration and Republicans. I hope to devote more of my time to posting muckraking articles on my site and to working with my local activist group in pursuit of progressive change and a stronger democracy. Thanks for reading!

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Friday, 1 July 2022:

 

War in Ukraine: Ukraine says missile strikes in Odessa area leave more than 20 dead, The Washington Post, Ellen Francis, Andrew Jeong, Amy Cheng, Julian Duplain, Karina Tsui, David L. Stern, and Meryl Kornfield, Friday, 1 July 2022: “In Ukraine’s Odessa region, Russian strikes killed at least 21 people and injured 38 at an apartment building and a recreation center, Ukrainian officials said Friday. While the Kremlin denied hitting civilians, Ukrainian officials said at least one child was killed and others wounded. Rescuers are still searching for victims under the rubble. Video posted to Telegram on Friday, and verified by The Washington Post, shows the aftermath of the strikes. ‘Everything was blown apart,’ a witness said in a Telegram video. War crimes prosecutors collected evidence at the scene. A Russian prosecutor on Friday accused WNBA star Brittney Griner of transporting a ‘significant amount’ of cannabis oil, according to Russian media reports on her trial, where she faces 10 years in prison if convicted.

• Ukrainian officials say the new tranche of Western materiel is already making a difference on the battlefield.
• The United States will provide $820 million in security assistance to Ukraine, the Pentagon said Friday, focusing on weapons and equipment urgently needed for the battle in the east.
• Russia more than doubled the rate of its missile strikes in the last two weeks, according to a Ukrainian general.
• Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Ivan Fedotov reportedly has been arrested in Russia, accused of possible evasion of service in the army, according to Fontanka, a news outlet based in St. Petersburg.

Russia-Ukraine War: Death Toll Rises to 21 in Missile Strikes Near Odesa. Ukrainians accused Russia of retaliation for driving Russian forces from Snake Island, a strategic blow, but the attack was of a piece with similar apparently random strikes on residential areas. The New York Times, Friday, 1 July 2022:

• ‘This was an act of revenge.’ Rescuers comb rubble for victims in a seaside town where Russian missiles struck.

• Brittney Griner, now a wartime bargaining chip, goes on trial in Russia.

• Advanced rocket launchers sent by the U.S. are making a difference on the battlefield, officials say.

• A Polish tennis player is using her stardom to support Ukraine.

• At a boarding school in Ukraine, displaced children long for home.

Russia-Ukraine war: What happened today (July 1), NPR, NPR Staff, Friday, 1 July 2022: “As Friday draws to a close in Kyiv and in Moscow, here are the key developments of the day: Russian missiles hit residential areas near Odesa, killing at least 21 people. Fierce fighting has continued in the area, in southern Ukraine, for weeks. The European Union flag was hoisted in the Ukrainian Parliament in a symbolic and highly emotional moment for the country’s lawmakers, who stood and applauded. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Ukraine on gaining candidate status last week, launching a potentially lengthy process for the country to join the bloc. Inflation in 19 countries that use the euro hit a new record high of 8.6% in June. The war in Ukraine has helped drive up energy and food prices, and the Eurostat statistics agency estimated energy prices are almost 42% higher than last year. The trial for WNBA star Brittney Griner began in Russia, with prosecutors unsealing details about her case. She’s detained on drug smuggling charges over alleged cannabis vape cartridges in her luggage. Her next hearing is slated for July 7. UNESCO declared borsch cooking an endangered Ukrainian heritage ‘in need of urgent safeguarding’ because of Russia’s invasion. Ukraine’s culture minister declared victory ‘in the war for borsch,’ as Russia also lays claim to the hearty beet soup.”

Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, July 2022: [Read more…]

 

My daily chronicle of news about the Trump administration (20 January 2017 – 20 January 2021), Republicans, Democrats, corporations, courts, resistance, and persistence continues to wind down. I am still posting important articles, especially ones that reflect the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration and ones that address the toxic legacy of the Trump administration and Republicans. I hope to devote more of my time to posting muckraking articles on my site and to working with my local activist group in pursuit of progressive change and a stronger democracy. Thanks for reading!

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Wednesday, 1 June 2022:

 

War in Ukraine: With the war in Ukraine nearing its 100th day, Russia and the United States traded barbs over Washington’s pledge to bolster Kyiv’s military defense with advanced rocket systems, while the key Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk appears to be on the brink of capture, The Washington Post, Reis Thebault, Marisa Iati, Annabelle Timsit, Adela Suliman, Bryan Pietsch, and Rachel Pannett, Wednesday, 1 June 2022: “After President Biden announced the shipment of more firepower to Ukraine, Moscow accused America of ‘pouring fuel on the fire.’ But Secretary of State Antony Blinken denied that U.S. officials were escalating the conflict, and he urged Russia to end the war. Meanwhile, the battle for the Donbas continued, and local officials said Russian forces were close to claiming full control of Severodonetsk, a city important to Moscow’s strategy in the east. If Russia can capture the city, it would give the Kremlin a badly needed symbolic and territorial victory.

• The war has left at least 5.2 million children ‘in need of humanitarian assistance,’ the United Nations said Wednesday. Each day, the conflict kills at least two children and injures four more, according to U.N. figures.
• Germany said it would send a modern air defense system and an artillery-tracking radar to Ukraine, two crucial pieces of equipment.
• Russia’s Defense Ministry said its strategic missile forces were conducting exercises northeast of Moscow. They reportedly involve mobile launchers of the Yars, an intercontinental ballistic missile, and about 1,000 military service members.
• The European Commission approved the disbursement of Poland’s share of the European Union’s pandemic recovery fund — a decision seen as an expression of goodwill toward a country harboring roughly 3 million Ukrainian refugees.
• The Washington Post has lifted its paywall for readers in Russia and Ukraine. Telegram users can subscribe to our channel.

What Happened on Day 98 of the War in Ukraine. Pitched street battles raged in Sievierodonetsk as Russian forces pushed into the city center. Germany promised Ukraine an advanced air-defense system, a day after the U.S. said it would send more powerful artillery. The New York Times, Andrew E. Kramer, Wednesday, 1 June 2022: “Though much of the world’s focus in the war has been on Russia’s disorganized and flawed campaign, Ukraine, too, is struggling. Ukraine’s army has suffered heavy losses, shown signs of disarray and, step by step, fallen back from some long-held areas in Donbas, the eastern region that is now the war’s epicenter. The momentum Ukraine generated after pushing Russian forces back from Kyiv, the capital, and Kharkiv, the second-largest city, has given way in the east to weeks of give-and-take over villages, heavy shelling — and a stream of Ukrainian dead and wounded from the battlefields. Ukraine’s troops now face a Russian force that has shifted strategy from the hasty, reckless advances of the early weeks of the war to a creeping, grinding march enabled by massive artillery bombardments.”

Russia-Ukraine war: What happened today (June 1), NPR, NPR Staff, Wednesday, 1 June 2022: “As Wednesday draws to a close in Kyiv and in Moscow, here are the key developments of the day: Russian forces closed in on the last remaining areas under Ukrainian control in the eastern Luhansk region. The Luhansk regional governor said 80% of the city of Sievierodonetsk is under occupation, but Ukrainian forces have launched counterattacks and captured Russian troops. He said Ukraine still held onto the nearby city of Lysychansk, a militarily advantageous area on a hill. The U.S. is sending more advanced rocket systems and munitions to Ukraine, but not to be shot into Russia. This will include longer-range weapons as part of a new military aid package estimated at $700 million. President Biden wrote the new weapons will enable Ukrainians to make more precision strikes, but stressed that ‘we are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders.’ Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the weapons increased the risk of a direct conflict breaking out between Russia and the U.S. Germany also promised heavy weapons to Ukraine, including an air-defense system. Russia’s nuclear forces held drills northeast of Moscow, according to the Russian news agency Interfax, citing the country’s defense ministry. The drills in the Ivanovo region were said to involve 1,000 troops and more than 100 units of equipment, including Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, reported to have a range of over 6,800 miles. Ukraine made headway prosecuting Russians for war crimes. A court in the central Ukrainian city of Poltava handed guilty verdicts to two Russian soldiers — the second ruling in a war crimes trial in the country since Russia invaded, The Washington Post reports. The court sentenced the soldiers on Tuesday to 11 1/2 years for ‘violating the laws and customs of war’ when they shelled civilian sites in a town in the northeastern Kharkiv region. Ukraine’s chief prosecutor said 80 alleged war crimes cases were underway of around 15,000 incidents reported since the start of the February invasion. Ukraine’s soccer team won 3-1 against Scotland for a chance to qualify for this year’s World Cup. The game in Glasgow was the Ukrainian team’s first competitive match since Russia invaded their country on Feb. 24. Next the team will face Wales. Russia’s team has been banned, and the Ukrainian team got several extra months to prepare. Ukraine has not qualified to play in the World Cup since 2006.”

Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, June 2022:

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My daily chronicle of news about the Trump administration (20 January 2017 – 20 January 2021), Republicans, Democrats, corporations, courts, resistance, and persistence continues to wind down. I am still posting important articles, especially ones that reflect the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration and ones that address the toxic legacy of the Trump administration and Republicans. I hope to devote more of my time to posting muckraking articles on my site and to working with my local activist group in pursuit of progressive change and a stronger democracy. Thanks for reading!

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Sunday, 1 May 2022:

 

Mariupol evacuation push resumes; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, The Washington Post, Adam Taylor, Bryan Pietsch, Jennifer Hassan, Rachel Pannett, Annabelle Timsit, Paulina Villegas, Lateshia Beachum, and Reis Thebault, Sunday, 1 May 2022: “The long-awaited evacuation of civilians from a besieged steel plant in Mariupol, where Ukrainian fighters have staged a desperate last stand, continued Sunday, the United Nations said. About 100 people were being transferred from the surrounded southeastern port city to Ukrainian-controlled territory, but officials said hundreds more — including dozens of children — are stuck there. On Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a surprise trip to Kyiv with a congressional delegation, telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that ‘our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done.’ The meeting with Pelosi, the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, was disclosed by Zelensky on Sunday. The evacuation of civilians from the steel plant in Mariupol has been a contentious issue as Russia seeks control of the city, a strategic prize for President Vladimir Putin. For weeks, civilians who sought shelter at the sprawling facility have remained underground with dwindling supplies of food and medicine. A small group of women and children was allowed to leave the plant on Saturday.

• Fighting continues in the eastern city of Kharkiv, where local officials reported that shelling killed three, just hours after suggesting that Russian airstrikes and artillery attacks may be slowing after a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
• Moscow’s recent actions in the Russian-occupied region of Kherson — where civilians are facing an Internet blackout and the implementation of a plan to use Russian currency — are an attempt to ‘exert strong political and economic influence in Kherson over the long term,’ according to a British intelligence update.
• Europe is scrambling to respond to the energy crisis prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, after Putin cut off natural gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland for refusing to pay in rubles.
• The Post has lifted its paywall for readers in Russia and Ukraine. Telegram users can subscribe to our channel for updates.

What Happened on Day 67 of the War in Ukraine, The New York Times, Sunday, 1 May 2022: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in Kyiv, making her the most senior American official to visit Kyiv. Her visit signals a deepening U.S. commitment to Ukraine as Russia has struggled to make much progress in its offensive in the separatist east and sent its highest ranking uniformed officer, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, to the front line there late last week, U.S. and Ukrainian officials said. The rare front-line visit of such a high-ranking military official comes as analysts say the Russian forces remain beset with logistical problems and disarray among its troops, despite concentrating its efforts in the east after its campaign to take the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, ended in an embarrassing withdrawal. General Gerasimov’s visit was an effort to change the eastern offensive’s direction, a Ukrainian official said, as Russian forces have been able to make only incremental gains there so far. Ms. Pelosi announced on Sunday that she had met with President Volodymyr Zelensky and had pledged ‘to help the Ukrainian people as they defend democracy for their nation and for the world.’ The visit on Saturday by Ms. Pelosi and a few fellow Democratic lawmakers was kept secret until they returned to Poland, where they held a news conference on Sunday morning and vowed to back Ukraine ‘until victory is won.’

Here are some other developments:

• An evacuation of civilians from Mariupol was underway as women and children confined to bunkers beneath a sprawling steel plant started to make their way to safety, according to Ukrainian officials and the United Nations.

• Ukrainian officials in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions reported fierce battles as Russian tank columns tried to push into areas that Moscow’s forces have pounded with artillery fire. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that it had struck 800 targets across Ukraine over the past day, including a hangar in the port city of Odesa that it said was storing weapons and ammunition delivered to Ukraine by the United States and Europe.

• In territory controlled by Russia, including the southern region of Kherson, the occupying forces were trying to solidify control and taking steps to erase Ukrainian identity.

• Russian attacks on fuel depots and other infrastructure in Ukraine have led to shortages of gasoline, with drivers lining up outside gas stations.

• Russia’s foreign minister claimed that nearly a million people had been moved to Russia from Ukraine in voluntary ‘evacuations.”

Russia-Ukraine war: What happened today (May 1), NPR, NPR Staff, Sunday, 1 May 2022: “As Sunday draws to a close in Kyiv and in Moscow, here are the key developments of the day: Congressional Democrats met Ukrainian leaders in the capital, they announced on Sunday. The Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials on Saturday for three hours to discuss American support for the war. Pelosi, the most senior American official to visit Ukraine since the war began in February, said the topics of discussion included ‘security, humanitarian assistance, economic assistance and eventually rebuilding when victory is won.’ About 100 civilians were evacuated from a Mariupol steel plant. Of the thousands of civilians still trapped in the besieged port city, about a thousand are believed to be sheltering in bunkers beneath the plant. Previous attempts to evacuate the civilians have been thwarted by repeated Russian shelling. Officials in Odesa imposed a curfew. Officials in the southern port city say the enforced curfew will extend from Sunday night through Tuesday morning after warning of possible sabotage in the city. In the past, pro-Russian activists have mobilized for protests and unrest in the city on May 2 each year. Russian ground forces are now fighting just a few hours away and Russian naval vessels are blockading Odesa’s port. Germany said it was making progress in cutting its use of Russian fossil fuels. European countries are under pressure to stop importing Russian gas, while Russia flexed its economic power by cutting off gas to Poland and Bulgaria.”

Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, May 2022:

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My daily chronicle of news about the Trump administration (20 January 2017 – 20 January 2021), Republicans, Democrats, corporations, courts, resistance, and persistence continues to wind down. I am still posting important articles, especially ones that reflect the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration and ones that address the toxic legacy of the Trump administration and Republicans. I hope to devote more of my time to posting muckraking articles on my site and to working with my local activist group in pursuit of progressive change and a stronger democracy. Thanks for reading!

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Friday, 1 April 2022:

 

Thousands trapped in Mariupol after evacuation effort stalls, The Washington Post, Dalton Bennett, Hannah Knowles, Adela Suliman, Ellen Francis, Kim Bellware, Miriam Berger, and Andrew Jeong, Friday, 1 April 2022: “A major evacuation effort stalled Friday after the Red Cross said it was unable to reach the port city of Mariupol, where Ukrainian authorities said thousands escaped but have estimated as many as 100,000 people remained trapped in grim conditions. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it would try to reach Mariupol again this weekend after conditions Friday ‘made it impossible to proceed’ with a major humanitarian mission. The ICRC had readied a nine-person team to help evacuate civilians as the Kremlin declared a cease-fire in the city. Shelling destroyed much of Mariupol as a weeks-long Russian blockade severed the city from the outside world, raising alarms about dwindling resources.

• Russia accused Ukraine on Friday of attacking a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod in what appeared to be Ukraine’s first airstrike on Russian soil since the invasion.
• Oil prices fell Friday after member nations of the International Energy Agency authorized the release of emergency oil reserves, joining with the United States.
• The U.S. Air Force canceled a scheduled test of an intercontinental ballistic missile earlier this month to avoid the potential for escalated tensions with Russia, the service said.
• The Washington Post has lifted its paywall for readers in Russia and Ukraine. Telegram users can subscribe to our channel for updates.

What Happened on Day 37 of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. The New York Times, Friday, 1 April 2022: “The most ambitious effort yet to evacuate desperate civilians from Ukraine’s devastated port of Mariupol, besieged by Russian forces for weeks, was upended by disruptions Friday, with thousands of residents managing to flee but many more still stuck after the Red Cross judged the exodus too dangerous. The suspended Red Cross evacuation in Mariupol, a city that has come to symbolize the horrors of the war in Ukraine, was among several developments painting a mixed picture on Friday as one of the biggest armed conflicts to convulse Europe in decades rumbled into its sixth week. New signs emerged that Russian forces, stymied by their own botched planning and fierce Ukrainian resistance, were retreating from areas outside of Kyiv, the capital, and moving north. Ukrainians asserted that they had retaken control of more than two dozen suburban towns and hamlets. Ukrainian helicopter gunships struck an oil terminal inside Russia, Russian officials said — which, if confirmed, would be the first known Ukrainian airstrike in Russian territory since the Feb. 24 invasion. Such an attack would be both embarrassing and potentially provocative to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in his troubled military campaign to subjugate Ukraine. Ukrainian officials gave conflicting accounts on whether Ukraine was responsible.”

Russia-Ukraine war: What happened today (April 1), NPR, NPR Staff, Friday, 1 April 2022: “As Friday draws to a close in Kyiv and in Moscow, here are the key developments of the day: Russian officials said that Ukrainian helicopters struck an oil depot in the Russian city of Belgorod, about 20 miles from the border with Ukraine. Ukraine refused to confirm or deny the report. It is the first time Russia has reported a Ukrainian airstrike on Russian soil. Russian troops leaving Chernobyl likely suffered radiation exposure, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said. The ministry said Russian forces have fully withdrawn from the area of the former nuclear power plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency said it has not yet been able to confirm reports of Russian forces receiving high doses of radiation. A humanitarian relief team that was planning to evacuate civilians Friday from Mariupol was unable to reach the besieged Ukrainian city. They will try again Saturday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. Officials from Russia and Ukraine met for another day of talks about a potential cease-fire, as fighting continued in Ukraine. The Ukrainian president’s office said 86 of the country’s service members were freed in the Zaporizhzhia region as part of a prisoner swap with Russia, although the number of Russians released was not disclosed, The Associated Press reported. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stripped two generals of their military rank, calling them ‘traitors’ and ‘antiheroes.’ Both were intelligence officers in the Security Service of Ukraine. One was the former chief of the agency’s main department of internal security. The other was the former head of the agency’s office in the Kherson region — Kherson being one of the few big Ukrainian cities that has fallen to Russian forces.

Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, April 2022:

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My daily chronicle of news about the Trump administration (20 January 2017 – 20 January 2021), Republicans, Democrats, corporations, courts, resistance, and persistence continues to wind down. I am still posting important articles, especially ones that reflect the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration and ones that address the toxic legacy of the Trump administration and Republicans. I hope to devote more of my time to posting muckraking articles on my site and to working with my local activist group in pursuit of progressive change and a stronger democracy. Thanks for reading!

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Tuesday, 1 March 2022:

 

Putin steps up assault on residential areas, and Biden closes U.S. airspace to Russian planes, The Washington Post, Isabelle Khurshudyan, Steve Hendrix, Rachel Pannett, Ellen Francis, Timothy Bella, Dan Lamothe, Brittany Shammas, Reis Thebault, and Hannah Knowles, Monday, 1 March 2022: “With a massive convoy of Russian troops idling just 20 miles north of central Kyiv and shelling intensifying from the capital to cities across Ukraine, Moscow appeared to escalate its attacks on residential areas Tuesday, with videos and social media posts documenting the devastation and fierce fighting. The most visible assault came when a missile strike hit Kyiv’s main TV tower and a nearby Holocaust memorial, killing at least five people, officials said. Footage of the aftermath, obtained by The Washington Post, showed a gruesome scene of blown-out cars and buildings and several bodies on fire. Kyiv was bracing for an all-out assault amid fears that Russian troops would encircle the capital, as they’ve apparently done in the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, its mayor told The Post. In his State of the Union address, President Biden applauded the bravery of Ukrainians fighting the invasion and called for the United States and its allies to continue to support the resistance to Russian forces. But, Biden acknowledged, ‘the next few days, weeks and months will be hard’ for Ukraine, with Russian President Vladimir Putin expected to continue escalating his offensive. Biden also announced that the United States would close its airspace to Russian airlines, ‘further isolating Russia and adding additional squeeze on their economy,’ he said.

What Happened on Day 6 of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, The New York Times, Tuesday, 1 March 2022: “Explosions struck the capital, Kyiv, and an apparent rocket strike destroyed an administration building in Kharkiv, the second largest city, killing civilians.” See also, U.S. official says Russia’s 40-mile convoy has stalled on its way to Kyiv,  NPR, Bill Chappell, Tuesday, 1 March 2022: “Logistics problems are stalling a massive Russian convoy that’s pushing its way toward Kyiv, according to a senior U.S. defense official. The convoy, which has been measured as stretching for 40 miles, is apparently being hampered by fuel and food shortages. The news comes as Russia continues to concentrate attacks on the large Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv. As night fell on Ukraine on Tuesday, Russia’s large convoy was still about 18 miles north of Kyiv — representing little or no change from Monday, the official said. The official added that some elements within the military column are ‘literally out of gas’ and having difficulty feeding their troops. ‘The U.S. says about 80% of the estimated 190,000 Russian troops that rimmed Ukraine are now in the country,’ NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman reports. ‘About 400 missiles have been fired by the Russians since the invasion began last week.'” See also, Russia bombards a Kyiv TV tower and the Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial site, NPR, Rachel Treisman, Tuesday, 1 March 2022: “Apparent Russian strikes have hit the main television and radio tower in Kyiv, as well as a memorial to the site where Nazis killed thousands of Jews during World War II. Ukraine’s foreign ministry confirmed the attack in a tweet, in which it equated Russia with barbarism. The State Emergency Service said five people were killed and another five injured in the attack on the Kyiv TV tower, according to Interfax. Citing the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it also reported that the broadcaster’s control room was hit and TV channels will not work ‘for some time.’ The ministry said backup broadcasting of some channels will be switched on in the near future, and the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection is asking Kyiv residents to rely on regional TV channels until then.”

State of the Union Highlights: Biden Gets Tough on Russia and Promotes Plan for Economy. Mr Biden said Valdimir Putin would ‘pay a price’ for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Of his economic plans, he said, ‘I have another way to fight inflation: Lower your costs, not your wages.’ The New York Times, Michael D. Shear, Tuesday, 1 March 2022: “President Biden used his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night to condemn President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, rally global support for the besieged country of Ukraine and convince Americans that his administration has made progress toward a Covid-free time of economic and social prosperity. The hourlong address, delivered to a mostly maskless audience of lawmakers and others in the House chamber, was in some ways two separate speeches: The first half focused on the war unfolding in Europe, followed by a second half aimed at reviving his stalled domestic policy agenda in Washington.” See also, Biden’s State of the Union applauds unity against Russia and seeks more unity at home. At a moment of global chaos, Biden cites Americans’ broad agreement on the Russia-Ukraine war to urge similar unity on domestic issues. The Washington Post, Annie Linskey and Tyler Pager, Tuesday, 1 March 2022: “President Biden sought to rally the country against war, inflation and the pandemic during his first State of the Union address Tuesday night, using one of the biggest moments of his presidency to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and pitching a diminished agenda he hopes can win bipartisan support. The speech unfolded against a brutal backdrop as fighting intensified in what has become the biggest European land war since World War II. In the opening moments of his address, Biden noted the rejection of Russia and embrace of Ukraine by Americans of all stripes as evidence of the country’s underlying commonality. ‘We fought for freedom, expanded liberty, defeated totalitarianism and terror. We built the strongest, freest and most prosperous nation the world has ever known,’ Biden said toward the end of his address. ‘Now is the hour. Our moment of responsibility. Our test of resolve and conscience, of history itself,’ he said, adding ‘I know this nation will meet the test. To protect freedom and liberty, to expand fairness and opportunity. We will save democracy.’ The lawmakers in the chamber displayed unity as Biden spoke about Ukraine, as some waved small Ukrainian flags and Republicans joined Democrats in applauding his condemnations of Russia. But that unity evaporated the moment Biden turned to domestic policy.” See also, 5 takeaways from Biden’s State of the Union address, NPR, Domenico Montanaro, published on Wednesday, 2 March 2002: “President Biden’s first formal State of the Union address focused on Ukraine, inflation, the coronavirus pandemic and a four-point ‘Unity Agenda.’ He urged world unity in standing up to Russia, listed ways he’s trying to address rising prices (even if they will likely have limited to no effect in the short term) and offered an optimistic outlook about the end of the pandemic. Biden made mention of some progressive policy items, such as the need for robust voting-rights legislation and stood up for transgender and abortion rights (while leaving out some other topics such as climate change). And he also touted some of the accomplishments of his first year, such as the COVID-19 relief bill and the bipartisan infrastructure bill. But the speech’s emphasis on many of Biden’s centrist policy positions, like not defunding the police, was a clear choice in an election year. It was reminiscent, in some ways, of Bill Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union address made after Republicans’ historic gains in the 1994 midterm elections.”

Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, March 2022:

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My daily chronicle of news about the Trump administration (20 January 2017 – 20 January 2021), Republicans, Democrats, corporations, courts, resistance, and persistence continues to wind down. I am still posting important articles, especially ones that reflect the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration and ones that address the toxic legacy of the Trump administration and Republicans. I hope to devote more of my time to posting muckraking articles on my site and to working with my local activist group in pursuit of progressive change and a stronger democracy. Thanks for reading!

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Tuesday, 1 February 2022:

 

New York Attorney General Letitia James subpoenaed the General Services Administration for information about how the agency selected former president Donald Trump’s business to lease the historic post office where he developed his D.C. hotel. The request sought information about whether Trump used false information to secure the hotel lease, according to people familiar with the inquiry. The Washington Post, Jonathan O’Connell, Josh Dawsey, and Shayna Jacobs, Tuesday, 1 February 2022: “The inquiry, part of a civil investigation into Trump’s business, sought information about whether Trump inflated his net worth to secure the lease, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing legal inquiry. The documents James sought included a scorecard GSA used to rank Trump’s bid against those of other developers who proposed leasing and redeveloping the federally owned Old Post Office Pavilion downtown. That information could fit into James’s broader effort to show a pattern of Trump giving false information to business partners, banks and insurers to secure loans and other deals. James’s request appears to differ from previous inquiries into Trump’s hotel, which largely focused on whether he should have been allowed to retain the deal while in office. After Trump was elected, he ignored calls from Democrats to sell his stake in the lease to avoid conflicts of interest. Trump is now working to sell that lease, in a deal that could net his company $100 million in profits, and the negotiations have coincided with renewed scrutiny from lawmakers and prosecutors.”

Trump’s Words, and Deeds, Reveal Depths of His Drive to Retain Power. Donald Trump said he wanted Mike Pence to overturn the election, dangled pardons for January 6 rioters, and called for protests against prosecutors. Now, it turns out, he had discussed having national security agencies seize voting machines. The New York Times, Shane Goldmacher, Tuesday, 1 February 2022: “A series of new remarks by Donald J. Trump about the aftermath of the 2020 election and new disclosures about his actions in trying to forestall its result — including discussing the use of the national security apparatus to seize voting machines — have stripped away any pretense that the events of Jan. 6, 2021, were anything but the culmination of the former president’s single-minded pursuit of retaining power. Mr. Trump said on Sunday that Mike Pence ‘could have overturned the election,’ acknowledging for the first time that the aim of the pressure campaign he focused on his vice president had simply been to change the election’s result, not just to buy time to root out supposed fraud, as he had long insisted. Those efforts ended at the Capitol with a violent riot of Trump supporters demanding that Mr. Pence block the Electoral College vote. Over the weekend, Mr. Trump also dangled, for the first time, that he could issue pardons to anyone facing charges for participating in the Jan. 6 attack if he is elected president again — the latest example of a yearslong flirtation with political violence. And, ignoring what happened the last time he encouraged a mass demonstration, Mr. Trump urged his supporters to gather ‘in the biggest protests we have ever had’ if prosecutors in New York and Atlanta moved further against him. The prosecutor examining Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election in Georgia immediately asked the F.B.I. to conduct a ‘risk assessment’ of her building’s security. The events of Jan. 6 played out so publicly and so brutally — the instigating speech by Mr. Trump, the flag-waving march to the Capitol, the violent clashes with the police, the defiling of the seat of democracy — and have since been so extensively re-examined that at times it can seem as if there were little more to be discovered about what led up to that day. Then, The New York Times reported this week that Mr. Trump himself had directed his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to ask the Department of Homeland Security whether it could legally seize voting machines in three key swing states. Mr. Trump also raised, in an Oval Office meeting with Attorney General William P. Barr, the possibility of the Justice Department’s seizing the machines. Both ideas quickly fizzled. But historians say the episodes and Mr. Trump’s new comments acknowledging his determination to stay in power — and his effective embrace of the Jan. 6 rioters at the Capitol, who he said must be treated ‘fairly’ — have newly underscored the fragility of the nation’s democratic systems.”

 

Wednesday, 2 February 2022:

 

Just Over Two Weeks After Election Day 2020, Lawyers Working With the Trump Campaign Set Out a Rationale for Creating Alternate Slates of Electors as Part of an Effort to Buy Time to Overturn the Election Results. Memos show the roots of Trump’s focus on January 6 and alternate electors. The New York Times, Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman, and Luke Broadwater, Wednesday, 2 February 2022: “Fifteen days after Election Day in 2020, James R. Troupis, a lawyer for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, received a memo setting out what became the rationale for an audacious strategy: to put in place alternate slates of electors in states where President Donald J. Trump was trying to overturn his loss. The memo, from another lawyer named Kenneth Chesebro, may not have been the first time that lawyers and allies of Mr. Trump had weighed the possibility of naming their own electors in the hopes that they might eventually succeed in flipping the outcome in battleground states through recounts and lawsuits baselessly asserting widespread fraud. But the Nov. 18 memo and another three weeks later are among the earliest known efforts to put on paper proposals for preparing alternate electors. They helped to shape a crucial strategy that Mr. Trump would embrace with profound consequences for himself and the nation. The memos show how just over two weeks after Election Day, Mr. Trump’s campaign was seeking to buy itself more time to undo the results. At the heart of the strategy was the idea that their real deadline was not Dec. 14, when official electors would be chosen to reflect the outcome in each state, but Jan. 6, when Congress would meet to certify the results. And in that focus on Jan. 6 lay the seeds of what became a pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence to accept the validity of a challenge to the outcome and to block Congress from finalizing Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory — a campaign that would also lead to a violent assault on the Capitol by Trump supporters and an extraordinary rupture in American politics.” See also, Read the November 18 Memo on Alternate Trump Electors, The New York Times, Wednesday, 2 February 2022: “This memo is among the earliest known efforts to put on paper proposals for preparing alternate slates of Trump electors in Biden-won states and helped to shape a crucial strategy President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers embraced in his efforts to overturn his election loss.”

Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, February 2022:

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My daily chronicle of news about the Trump administration (20 January 2017 – 20 January 2021), Republicans, Democrats, corporations, courts, resistance, and persistence continues to wind down. I am still posting important articles, especially ones that reflect the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration and ones that address the toxic legacy of the Trump administration and Republicans. I hope to devote more of my time to posting muckraking articles on my site and to working with my local activist group in pursuit of progressive change and a stronger democracy. Thanks for reading!

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Saturday, 1 January 2022:

 

Every Day Is January 6 Now, The New York Times, The Editorial Board, Saturday, 1 January 2022: “One year after the smoke and broken glass, the mock gallows and the very real bloodshed of that awful day, it is tempting to look back and imagine that we can, in fact, simply look back. To imagine that what happened on Jan. 6, 2021 — a deadly riot at the seat of American government, incited by a defeated president amid a last-ditch effort to thwart the transfer of power to his successor — was horrifying but that it is in the past and that we as a nation have moved on. This is an understandable impulse. After four years of chaos, cruelty and incompetence, culminating in a pandemic and the once-unthinkable trauma of Jan. 6, most Americans were desperate for some peace and quiet. On the surface, we have achieved that. Our political life seems more or less normal these days, as the president pardons turkeys and Congress quarrels over spending bills. But peel back a layer, and things are far from normal. Jan. 6 is not in the past; it is every day. It is regular citizens who threaten election officials and other public servants, who ask, “When can we use the guns?” and who vow to murder politicians who dare to vote their conscience. It is Republican lawmakers scrambling to make it harder for people to vote and easier to subvert their will if they do. It is Donald Trump who continues to stoke the flames of conflict with his rampant lies and limitless resentments and whose twisted version of reality still dominates one of the nation’s two major political parties. In short, the Republic faces an existential threat from a movement that is openly contemptuous of democracy and has shown that it is willing to use violence to achieve its ends. No self-governing society can survive such a threat by denying that it exists. Rather, survival depends on looking back and forward at the same time. Truly grappling with the threat ahead means taking full account of the terror of that day a year ago. Thanks largely to the dogged work of a bipartisan committee in the House of Representatives, this reckoning is underway. We know now that the violence and mayhem broadcast live around the world was only the most visible and visceral part of the effort to overturn the election. The effort extended all the way into the Oval Office, where Mr. Trump and his allies plotted a constitutional self-coup.”

 

Sunday, 2 January 2022:

 

Republican Liz Cheney calls Trump ‘clearly unfit for future office,’ ABC News, Lucien Bruggeman, Sunday, 2 January 2022: “Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wy., the top Republican on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, said former President Donald Trump is ‘clearly unfit for future office [and] clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again. He crossed lines no American president has ever crossed before,’ she said in an interview with ‘This Week’ anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. ‘When a president refuses to tell the mob to stop, when he refuses to defend any of the coordinate branches of government, he cannot be trusted.’ The Wyoming Republican said her party has a ‘particular duty’ to not only reject the events of Jan. 6, but ‘to make sure that Donald Trump is not our nominee, and that he’s never anywhere close to the reins of power ever again.’… As the one-year anniversary of the Capitol siege nears, the House select committee’s sprawling probe is in full swing. In the past six months, the panel has interviewed more than 300 people, issued more than 50 subpoenas and obtained tens of thousands of records. Cheney said the panel’s substantial efforts have already garnered important findings regarding Trump’s actions that day. ‘The committee has firsthand testimony now that [Trump] was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the attack on television,’ she said. She went on to add, ‘We have firsthand testimony that his daughter Ivanka went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence. He could have told them to stand down. He could have told them to go home – and he failed to do so,’ Cheney continued. ‘It’s hard to imagine a more significant and more serious dereliction of duty than that.’ ‘Is his failure to make that statement criminal negligence?’ Stephanopoulos asked. Cheney replied that there are several ‘potential criminal statutes at issue here.'” See also, Liz Cheney says the House committee investigating the January 6 violent attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters has ‘firsthand testimony that Ivanka asked Trump to intervene during the insurrection, CNN Politics, Daniella Diaz and Devan Cole, Dunday, 2 January 2022: “Members of the House select committee investigating January 6 said Sunday that they have critical testimony about communications to former President Donald Trump on the day of the deadly attack. Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee and one of its two Republican members, told ABC News that the panel has ‘firsthand testimony’ that during the attack, Trump’s daughter and then-senior adviser Ivanka Trump asked him to intervene. And Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, told CNN the panel has ‘significant testimony’ that the White House ‘had been told to do something.'”

Twitter ‘permanently suspends Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account. Greene’s account was suspended over ‘repeated violations’ of Twitter’s Covid-19 misinformation policy, the company said. NBC News, Doha Madani, Sunday, 2 January 2022: “Twitter suspended a personal account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., for ‘repeated violations’ of its Covid misinformation policy, the company said Sunday. ‘We permanently suspended the account you referenced (@mtgreenee) for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,’ Twitter said in a statement. ‘We’ve been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy.’ Greene appears to still have access to her professional account, @RepMTG. Twitter did not say what was tweeted to earn what it calls a permanent suspension…. ‘Twitter implemented a strike system for violations in March. A single strike might not incur an action, but the company will place locks on accounts that repeatedly violate the policy. Five or more strikes result in a ‘permanent suspension,’ according to the company’s website. Greene was suspended multiple times last year for violations of the policies.”

Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, January 2022:

[Read more…]

 

My daily chronicle of news about the Trump administration (20 January 2017 – 20 January 2021), Republicans, Democrats, corporations, courts, resistance, and persistence continues to wind down. I am still posting important articles, especially ones that reflect the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration and ones that address the toxic legacy of the Trump administration and Republicans. I hope to devote more of my time to posting muckraking articles on my site and to working with my local activist group in pursuit of progressive change and a stronger democracy. Thanks for reading!

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Wednesday, 1 December 2021:

 

Supreme Court Appears Open to Upholding Mississippi Abortion Restriction. After two hours of sometimes tense exchanges in one of the most significant abortion cases in years, the court appeared poised to uphold the state law, which bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The New York Times, Adam Liptak, Wednesday, 1 December 2021: “The Supreme Court seemed poised on Wednesday to uphold a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, based on sometimes tense and heated questioning at a momentous argument in the most important abortion case in decades. Such a ruling would be flatly at odds with what the court has said was the central holding of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion and prohibited states from banning the procedure before fetal viability, or around 23 weeks. But the court’s six-member conservative majority seemed divided about whether to stop at 15 weeks, for now at least, or whether to overrule Roe entirely, allowing states to ban abortions at any time or entirely…. Assuming the three most conservative members of the court — Justices Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch — are prepared to overrule Roe entirely, Chief Justice Roberts would need to attract at least two votes for a narrower opinion, one upholding the Mississippi law but not overruling Roe in so many words, to be controlling. But the most likely candidates, Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, said little to suggest that they were inclined toward that narrower approach. The court’s three liberal members — Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — were adamant that Roe should stand. Should Roe be overturned, at least 20 states will immediately or in short order make almost all abortions unlawful, forcing women who can afford it to travel long distances to obtain the procedure. Chief Justice Roberts expressed frustration with Mississippi’s litigation strategy. In the state’s petition seeking Supreme Court review, officials told the justices that ‘the questions presented in this petition do not require the court to overturn Roe or Casey,’ though lawyers for the state did raise the possibility in a footnote. Once the court agreed to hear the case, the state shifted its emphasis and began a sustained assault on those precedents. That amounted to a bait-and-switch, Chief Justice Roberts suggested. The more liberal justices pressed Scott G. Stewart, Mississippi’s solicitor general, on the dangers of overruling a longstanding precedent after changes in the membership of the court…. Justice Sotomayor asked whether the court would ‘survive the stench’ of being considered a political institution, a point echoed by Justice Kagan.” See also, Supreme Court signals willingness to uphold abortion limits in Mississippi case. The Mississippi law bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, allowing them only in medical emergencies or cases of severe fetal abnormality. NBC News, Pete Williams and Teaganne Finn, Wednesday, 1 December 2021: “The Supreme Court appeared prepared Wednesday to uphold a Mississippi law that would ban almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which would be a dramatic break from 50 years of rulings. The justices heard 90 minutes of oral arguments in the most direct challenge to Roe v. Wade in nearly three decades. A majority of the court’s conservative justices suggested they were prepared to discard the court’s previous standard that prevented states from banning abortion before a fetus becomes viable, which is generally considered to be at about 24 weeks into a pregnancy. It was unclear after Wednesday’s argument whether the court would take the additional step of explicitly overturning its abortion precedents, including Roe v. Wade. The three more liberal justices warned that the court would appear to be a political body if it tossed out abortion rulings that the country has relied on for decades. ‘It is particularly important to show that what we do in overturning a case is grounded in principle and not social pressure,’ Justice Stephen Breyer warned. Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked, ‘Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts? I don’t see how it’s possible.’ And Justice Elena Kagan said the court must not act in a way that would cause people to think it is ‘a political institution that will go back and forth, depending on what part of the public yells the loudest or changes to the court’s membership.'” See also, Roe v. Wade’s future is in doubt after historic arguments at the Supreme Court, NPR, Nina Totenberg, Wednesday, 1 December 2021: “The right to an abortion in the United States appeared to be on shaky ground as a divided Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday on the fate of Roe v. Wade, the court’s 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the United States. At issue in Wednesday’s case — Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — was a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Until now, all the court’s abortion decisions have upheld Roe‘s central framework — that women have a constitutional right to an abortion in the first two trimesters of pregnancy when a fetus is unable to survive outside the womb, roughly 24 weeks. But Mississippi asked the Supreme Court to reverse all its prior abortion decisions and return the abortion question to the states. The court’s three newest justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, all Trump appointees — appeared to signal they are ready to side with Mississippi — but it wasn’t immediately clear if all of them would strike down Roe, as the state of Mississippi has asked.” See also, Supreme Court seems inclined to uphold Mississippi abortion law that would undermine Roe v. Wade, The Washington Post, Robert Barnes, Wednesday, 1 December 2021: “The Supreme Court on Wednesday signaled it is on the verge of a major curtailment of abortion rights in the United States, and appeared likely to uphold a Mississippi law that violates one of the essential holdings of Roe v. Wade established nearly 50 years ago. Whether the court would eventually overrule Roe and its finding that women have a fundamental right to end their pregnancies was unclear. But none of the six conservatives who make up the court’s majority expressed support for maintaining its rule that states may not prohibit abortion before the point of fetal viability, which is generally estimated to be between 22 and 24 weeks of pregnancy. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., often the most moderate of the conservatives, said Mississippi’s law prohibiting most abortions after 15 weeks was not a ‘dramatic departure’ from viability, and gave women enough time to make the choice to end their pregnancies. He added: ‘Why would 15 weeks be an inappropriate line?’ But the other conservatives did not express much interest in rewriting Roe, decided in 1973, or 1992’s affirming decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Rather, they indicated they were open to simply getting rid of both. The court’s liberal justices said the institution’s reputation would be irreparably damaged if nearly a half-century of its abortion jurisprudence were dismantled because of a change in membership.” See also, Supreme Court’s conservatives lean toward limiting abortion rights after dramatic oral arguments on Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks, CNN Politics, Ariane de Vogue, Wednesday, 1 December 2021: “The Supreme Court seemed poised Wednesday to uphold a Mississippi law that bars abortion after 15 weeks, but it is less clear if there is a clear majority to end the right to abortion nationwide, although conservative justices expressed skepticism about the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. The dispute represents the culmination of a decades-long effort on the part of critics of the landmark opinion that legalized abortion nationwide to return the issue to the states, a move that would almost immediately eviscerate abortion rights in large swaths of the South and the Midwest. Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to be looking for a middle ground to allow states to ban abortion earlier — moving up the viability line from the current 22 to 23 weeks — but leaving in place some remnants of a woman’s right to end a pregnancy. He said 15 weeks was not a ‘dramatic departure’ from viability.”

Trump tested positive for Covid a few days before Biden debate, chief of staff Mark Meadows says in new book. Meadows makes stunning admission in new memoir obtained by The Guardian, saying a second test returned negative. The Guardian, Martin Pengelly, Wednesday, 1 December 2021: “Donald Trump tested positive for Covid-19 three days before his first debate against Joe Biden, the former president’s fourth and last chief of staff has revealed in a new book. Mark Meadows also writes that though he knew each candidate was required ‘to test negative for the virus within seventy two hours of the start time … Nothing was going to stop [Trump] from going out there.’ Trump, Meadows says in the book, returned a negative result from a different test shortly after the positive. Nonetheless, the stunning revelation of an unreported positive test follows a year of speculation about whether Trump, then 74 years old, had the potentially deadly virus when he faced Biden, 77, in Cleveland on 29 September – and what danger that might have presented. Trump announced he had Covid on 2 October. The White House said he announced that result within an hour of receiving it. He went to hospital later that day. Meadows’ memoir, The Chief’s Chief, will be published next week by All Seasons Press, a conservative outlet. The Guardian obtained a copy on Tuesday – the day Meadows reversed course and said he would cooperate with the House committee investigating the deadly Capitol attack of 6 January. In a statement on Wednesday, Trump called Meadows’ claims ‘Fake News.'” See also, Three former aides say Trump tested positive for coronavirus before first debate with Biden, The Washington Post, Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, Annie Linskey, and Dan Diamond, Wednesday, 1 December 2021: “President Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus days before he shared the debate stage with then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in late September 2020, according to his former chief of staff and two others familiar with the former president’s test — a stunning revelation that illustrates the dismissive approach to the dangers posed by the virus in Trump’s inner circle. Trump’s positive test for the virus was Sept. 26, 2020, according to an account by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in a new book obtained by the Guardian newspaper. The Meadows account of the positive result was confirmed Wednesday by two former aides who requested anonymity to discuss their knowledge of the former president’s health. The timing means Trump would have had reason to believe he was infected with the coronavirus three days before the Sept. 29 presidential debate and six days before he was hospitalized for covid-19 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The disclosure also provides new evidence of Trump’s often reckless and cavalier approach to his health and the health of those around him as he struggled through a chaotic response to the pandemic.” See also, Two Ex-Officials Say Trump Tested Positive for Coronavirus Days Before First Debate With Biden, The New York Times, Maggie Haberman, Wednesday, 1 December 2021: “President Donald J. Trump tested positive for coronavirus three days before his first debate with Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020, two former administration officials said Wednesday. The White House did not announce the positive test at the time, and the president received a negative result shortly afterward and carried on with a campaign rally and the debate, the officials said. The account was first reported by The Guardian, which cited a forthcoming book by Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows…. The revelation came more than a year after widespread speculation that Mr. Trump was sick when he first shared a stage with Mr. Biden for their first presidential debate on Sept. 29, months into the pandemic.” See also, Former President Donald Trump showed ‘a flagrant lack of regard for public health’ and endangered White House staff by not disclosing a positive Covid-19 test he received last year, his former communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin said, CNN Politics, Devan Cole, Wednesday, 1 December 2021: “‘Full stop, this demonstrates a flagrant lack of regard for public health and for the well-being of others,’ Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served for a time as the director of strategic communications and assistant to the president in the Trump White House, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on ‘The Lead.’ She added: ‘At this time in the White House, I had staffers who were pregnant. I had one who is a multi-time cancer survivor. We had plenty of people in the West Wing who are over 65. We could have killed one of our colleagues and instead they decided to not tell anyone, putting every single one of us at risk.'”

Federal District Judge Amy Berman Jackson says people who spoke at the January 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ rally ‘stoked’ the crowd and should be held accountable, CNN Politics, Hannah Rabinowitz, Wednesday, 1 December 2021: “A federal judge suggested Wednesday that Donald Trump and others who spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6 should be held accountable for the US Capitol riot that followed, saying the then-President ‘stoked’ the crowd and ‘might’ve inspired what happened.’ Though she did not refer to Trump by name, District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said during a sentencing for riot defendant Russell Peterson that the former President and other speakers at the Ellipse riled the crowd and ‘explicitly encouraged them to go to the Capitol and fight for one reason and one reason only — to make sure the certification of the election didn’t happen. There may be others who bear greater responsibility and should be held accountable,’ Jackson said to Peterson. ‘But this is not their day in court. It’s yours.’  Jackson joins the ranks of several federal judges in Washington who have sharply criticized Trump for his inflammatory speech at the January 6 rally, with one judge saying last month that rioters were ‘pawns’ provoked into action. While Jackson stopped short of laying full responsibility at the feet of those who spoke at the January 6 rally, she and other judges have lambasted Trump and even suggested he may face legal consequences. Jackson has handled many politically significant court cases from the Trump era and its aftermath, and she’s known for her sharp criticism of his administration. She handles a number of the more than 670 Capitol riot cases, and has repeatedly disavowed attempts to frame rioters as political prisoners and called attention to what she considers dangerous lies about the 2020 election. Jackson also said Peterson should be held accountable, noting that he is an adult and responsible for his own actions on January 6. ‘You did receive a lot of overwhelming inaccurate information on social media,’ Jackson said to Peterson, ‘but you had a choice to reject the lies and not to join the antidemocratic call for martial law.'”

Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, December 2021:

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My daily chronicle of news about the Trump administration (20 January 2017 – 20 January 2021), Republicans, Democrats, corporations, courts, resistance, and persistence continues to wind down. I am still posting important articles, especially ones that reflect the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration and ones that address the toxic legacy of the Trump administration and Republicans. I hope to devote more of my time to posting muckraking articles on my site and to working with my local activist group in pursuit of progressive change and a stronger democracy. Thanks for reading!

 

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Friday, 1 October 2021:

 

Political Briefing: Biden Meets With Feuding Democrats and Expresses Confidence a Deal Can Be Reached. President Biden said progressives and centrists could come to an agreement on an infrastructure bill and a sweeping social spending and climate package, but said, ‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s in six minutes, six days, or six weeks.’ The New York Times, Friday, 1 October 2021:

• Biden puts the infrastructure bill on hold, saying Democrats need to unite on social spending.

• House approves a stopgap bill to revive transportation programs and end furloughs caused by the voting delay.

• Railroads, climate resilience, electrical upgrades: Here’s what the infrastructure bill would fund.

• Sinema, a holdout on the social spending bill, returns to Arizona for a doctor’s visit and a scheduled fund-raiser.

• Progressive Democrats celebrate delaying the vote on the infrastructure bill.

• Biden tries to broker a deal among Democrats, with prodding and patience.
• Why does Washington do so many things at the last minute? It’s complicated.

Biden Pulls Back on Infrastructure Bill, Tying It to Social Policy Measure. After pressing toward a vote, Democratic leaders accepted ‘reality’ that the bill could not pass before a broad climate change and safety net measure comes together. The New York Times, Jonathan Weisman and Emily Cochrane, Friday, 1 October 2021: “President Biden, facing an intraparty battle over his domestic agenda, put his own $1 trillion infrastructure bill on hold on Friday, telling Democrats that a vote on the popular measure must wait until Democrats pass his far more ambitious social policy and climate change package. In a closed-door meeting with Democrats on Capitol Hill, Mr. Biden told Democrats for the first time that keeping his two top legislative priorities together had become ‘just reality.’ And he conceded that reaching a deal between the divided factions on his domestic agenda could take weeks.” See also, Progressives Flex Muscles on Biden Agenda, Adopting New Tactics. Their persistence forced Speaker Nancy Pelosi to delay a planned vote on the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, In the end President Biden sided with their position. The New York Times, Luke Broadwater and Michael D. Shear, Friday, 1 October 2021: “Progressive Democrats in Congress, who have long promoted a bold, liberal agenda but often shied away from using hardball tactics to achieve it, did something unusual this week: They dug in. The nearly 100-member caucus refused to support a $1 trillion infrastructure bill that is a major piece of President Biden’s agenda, seeking leverage for a bigger fight. Their stance forced Speaker Nancy Pelosi to delay a planned vote on the measure and ultimately prompted Mr. Biden to side with them in saying that there could be no vote on the infrastructure legislation until agreement on a far broader, multitrillion-dollar social policy and climate measure. The maneuver drew plaudits from liberal activists who had watched with dismay in the past as their allies in Congress caved to pressure from Democratic leaders and surrendered in policy fights. And it signaled that the progressives enjoyed newfound influence, including the backing of a president long associated with his party’s moderates.” See also, Biden urges Democrats to compromise and have patience as he tries to revive economic agenda, The Washington Post, Tony Romm, Mike DeBonis, and Marianna Sotomayor, Friday, 1 October 2021: “President Biden attempted to quell an internal Democratic rebellion on Friday, pleading with lawmakers to compromise and stay patient as he tried to revive a $1.2 trillion infrastructure proposal and salvage his broader economic agenda from imminent collapse. Biden made the overture during a rare meeting on Capitol Hill in the midst of an intense, acrimonious fight over two pieces of legislation that Democrats were struggling to untangle. The first bill would fix the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections. A second package would authorize roughly $3.5 trillion to expand Medicare, combat climate change and boost a wide array of federal aid programs…. To try to break the logjam, Biden channeled his political roots as a seasoned legislator, huddling with Democrats in an attempt to coalesce them around a shared policy vision. But he also made clear that both of the party’s primary factions had no choice but to compromise equally, as they aim to deliver on the electoral promises that helped them secure Washington majorities in the first place.” See also, Biden Says Democrats Should Delay Infrastructure Vote Until Deal Reached. The party seeks agreement between moderate and progressive wings on separate social-policy and climate package. The Wall Street Journal, Andrew Duehren, Kristina Peterson, and Lindsay Wise, Friday, 1 October 2021: “President Biden called on House Democrats to hold off on voting on a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill until after they reach an agreement on a separate social-policy and climate bill, moving to again delay final passage of a central piece of his own agenda in a bid to unify restive Democrats. Even as Mr. Biden endorsed progressives’ push to hold up a vote on the infrastructure bill, however, he acknowledged in a closed-door meeting with House Democrats on Friday that the price tag of the social-policy and climate bill would need to drop substantially below $3.5 trillion to closer to roughly $2 trillion, according to lawmakers and aides.”

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman presses Texas on ‘very unusual’ abortion ban that uses citizen enforcement of its restrictive state law, The Washington Post, Ann E. Marimow, Friday, 1 October 2021: “A federal judge pressed lawyers for the state of Texas on Friday about the ‘very unusual’ design and legality of a ban on abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy that makes no exceptions for rape or incest. ‘If the state is so confident in the constitutionality of the limitations on a woman’s access to abortion, then why did it go to such great lengths to create this very unusual’ private enforcement mechanism ‘rather than just simply do it directly?’ U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman asked a lawyer for the Texas attorney general during a federal court hearing. Pitman’s question came as he considered the Biden administration’s request to block enforcement of the most restrictive abortion law in the country, which empowers private citizens, rather than state officials, to take civil action against anyone who helps terminate a pregnancy after cardiac activity is detected, usually around the six-week mark.” See also, Texas’ abortion law is back in court, NPR, Ryan Lucas and Carrie Johnson, Friday, 1 October 2021: “A federal judge is weighing arguments on the Justice Department’s emergency request to block Texas’ controversial new abortion law. Department attorneys and lawyers for the state of Texas made their cases on Friday at a virtual hearing before Judge Robert Pitman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. At stake is the ability of women in the country’s second-largest state to get an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, a time before which many people don’t realize they’re pregnant. ‘The state resorted to an unprecedented scheme of vigilante justice that was designed to scare abortion providers,’ argued Brian Netter, a lawyer for the Justice Department. ‘So far, it’s working. Women have been left desperate, forced under sometimes harrowing circumstances to get out of Texas, if they even can.'” See also, Federal Judge Hears Arguments Over Texas Abortion Law. The Justice Department said the law was intended to ‘violate the Constitution,’ and asked for it to be suspended while the courts determine if it is legal. The New York Times, Katie Benner and Sabrina Tavernise, Friday, 1 October 2021: “A federal judge heard arguments on Friday from the State of Texas and the federal government on whether a Texas law that bans nearly all abortions in the state should be suspended while the courts decide if it is legal. At issue is a restrictive abortion law that Texas enacted in September that uses a unique legal approach — deputizing private citizens to enforce it, instead of the state. The law, also known as the Texas Heartbeat Act and Senate Bill 8, has had a chilling effect, with most of the state’s roughly two dozen abortion clinics no longer offering abortion services in cases in which cardiac activity is detected, which usually begins at around six weeks of pregnancy. The Justice Department sued Texas last month over the law. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland called the enforcement mechanism ‘an unprecedented’ effort to prevent women from exercising their constitutionally protected right to have an abortion. He said that no matter their stand on abortion, Americans should fear that the Texas law could become a model to restrict other constitutionally protected rights.”

Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, October-November 2021:

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